New Study Show a Link between Bipolar and High Blood Pressure

According to a recent Michigan State University study, almost half of patients hospitalized with bipolar disorder may suffer from hypertension, and the younger a person is diagnosed with the psychiatric condition the more likely they are to develop high blood pressure.

Psychiatrist Dale D’Mello, a professor in MSU’s Department of Psychiatry said, “These findings show that we should look to treat hypertension more aggressively in bipolar patients,” said D’Mello, who has been studying the link between psychiatric and medical conditions for decades.

While the connection between such disorders and cardio-metabolic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes has been established, D'Mello discovered bipolar patients with high blood pressure suffered higher levels of mania.

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"There is a large clinical relevance to the finding hypertension could be linked to the severity of bipolar disorders," he said. "There is some similarity to the pathology of the two conditions; they both can be triggered by stress and are tied to the excretion of norepinephrine, a hormone affecting how the brain reacts to stress."

He further went on to say that, “There also is some evidence hypertension may lead to brain lesions; diagnosing high blood pressure and treating it earlier may change the medical outcomes for people battling bipolar disorders,” he said.

D’Mello said the next step is to discover how hypertension and other cardio-metabolic disorders interact over the long term.

"These findings show that we should look to treat hypertension more aggressively in bipolar patients," said D'Mello, who has been studying the link between psychiatric and medical conditions for decades. "There also is some evidence hypertension may lead to brain lesions; diagnosing high blood pressure and treating it earlier may change the medical outcomes for people battling bipolar disorders."

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Low blood levels of calcium can cause high blood pressure and also mental illness. A low calcium level lowers the trigger threshold of muscles and nerves. The muscles of the blood vessels will then contract without stimulus resulting in higher pressure. The nerves of the brain will fire without stimulus and result in mental illness.

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